BMW Decides To Manufacture the Takata Airbag Inflators in Germany

The Germany based BMW has announced its plans to help the Japanese counterpart company in delivering the replacement inflators quicker by assisting them in moving their production facilities from Mexico to Germany. BMW has explained that their decisions are in wake of the serious issues regarding the quality of the manufacturing at the Mexico plant raised by the U.S. safety regulators.

What Made BMW Take such Dramatic Steps? 

Automobile manufacturer who actively uses the Takata inflators also includes the Toyota Motor Corp. The Takata inflators seem to have the potential of blowing up with excessive force and spraying occupant with deadly sharp metals. It should also be noted that it isn’t feasible to switch to other suppliers in order to meet the demands for the replacement parts at this juncture.

Therefore the U.S. safety regulators are lending a helping hand by supporting BMW efforts in shifting the inflator production plant from Mexico to Takata plant in Freiberg, Germany. The Takata inflators are being currently investigated in at least five death cases in U.S.

German Facility Promises To Boost Production Capacity

Japanese company has the ability to produce 200 inflators per hour on its single production and at the moment it just has two of them in active use. This concludes that that it would be able only 1 million replacements in next five months at this snail pace. But the demand stands at 32 million for replacements parts. Therefore this shifting of production facility is taking place in order give a genuine boost to the production capacity of Takata.

Takata Runs into Serious Trouble

U.S. regulators have asked several questions relating to the Mexian plant production quality defects. The officials from Takata, Chrysler Group, Honda Motor Co and NHTSA would be testifying to a U.S. Senate panel in this regard on Thursday. Furthermore NHTSA has also ordered Takat and five other automobile manufactures to expand the U.S. recall of vehicles with the defective air bags.

Automobile Manufacturers Look For Alternatives

Companies like BMW, Toyota and Ford Motor Co are looking for quick solution to the problem of getting replacement parts. They are planning to buy replacement parts from the rival supplier but even such option is unviable as it would more than a year to get an alternate inflator production line in place.

Some of the automakers are looking to use completely new parts from other suppliers but they soon found that doing such a thing would require bringing in extensive changes in their cars. Companies like Honda, Toyota and Ford had considered this option. However problem would not cease to exist by implementing this as the suppliers would still fall short of keeping up with the demand. Even the companies go ahead with this proposition and build cars as per the exact specifications of the new inflators still it will take around a year to get it in the market.

Therefore the companies like Nissan, Mazda Motor and General Motors have dropped this idea and hope that Takata would be able to solve its supply problems in due time.

Will Apple's Next iPhone Capture DSLR Quality With 2 Lenses?

iPhone is one of the most loved brand and trusted among the people around the world and this could be the reason why rumors always keeping along with the brand. Although Apple has just released their latest version, iPhone 6, there are already market rumors that the company is working on the next version of the phone having two lenses on the camera, which will produce images with DSLR-quality.

How it all started? 

This rumor was sparked after a post on podcast entered by Daring Fireball’s John Gruber. John is highly respected Apple-focused commentator and well connected in their ecosystem. He is known to have never made any unwarranted predictions. In the month of August, John posted an update indicating that Apple is working on their wearable device thing and it is expected to be released in September. However, as people started getting curious about the same, he later stated that the post was just a joke and was meant to poke fun of the Motorola's smart watch, which resembled a flat tire. Whether rumor or joke; the company indeed unveiled their wearable smart watch in the month of September.

No damage done due to rumors

These rumors have not done any serious damage to the company and been told in a simple statement to the public. It all started with the statement indicating the news of the company working on upgrading the phone’s camera to two lenses. The lenses will be able to capture SLR quality images. As per to John, the new camera will not be able to replicate the SLR quality at technical level, but this sure is a huge step from the company’s end.

So what is special? 

John backed away from any kind of comparison being made between iPhone and SLR or DSLR on technical basis. The main point of this post was to highlight the current iPhone users will be able to migrate to the new high-end camera. Apple’s iPhone is known to capture the best of the images and one of the best camera due to which many people have stopped using the stand-alone camera. If the rumors have to be true, then this giant leap in terms of capturing moving images without any blur and ability to zoom will be enough to encourage many iPhone users to upgrade their iPhone 6 to the newest version.

If Apple is considering this option then, they will not be the first one to try this option out. HTC has already used the dual-camera system in their HTC One M8. HTC phone allows the users to change their focus angle even after snap has been taken.

If Apple is working on taking this new leap in terms of improving the quality of their camera by using CMOS imaging sensor system of Sony, then this move will be wholeheartedly welcomed by their customers. Although it is unlikely that the company has get the DSLR quality in their iPhone, but any change will be enough to spark the excitement in the customers towards upgrade.

China Suspected Of Attacking USPS and NOAA

Last week, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the United States Postal service had confirmed that that there were attacks on their computer system. These cyber attacks went on for a month and suspected to be originated in China. According to USPS, these attacks compromised the private information of nearly 800,000 employees. The type of information that was at risk includes date of birth, names, addresses, date of employments and Social Security numbers. This information’s is very important as anyone can forge and influence the service as well as other government agencies.

What is at risk? 

According to CTO, Greg Kazmierczak, Wave systems, specific details about any individual can be risky as the attackers can use them to spear phishing attacks later on. According to Eric Chiu, the president and founder of HyTrust, apart from attacking the companies, this personal data can be harmful to the employees against themselves. He stated that compared to the customer’s date, employee data is more valuable as the companies have a record of their social security, finance and home. This can help the attackers to forge the identity.

NOAA Breach: 

Even though USPS had not pointed fingers at anyone pertaining to this attack, but China is being suspected behind these attacks. According to CEO of ThreatTrack, Julian Waits Sr., this revelation could not have come at any bad time, now the customers will get concerned about their identity and their personal security. NOAA was called on the carpet regarding the breach originated from the Chinese systems. They informed Frank R. Wolf from the Virginia Republican that they sure that their systems were hacked by China. However, they were unable to confirm that this attack specifically originated in China.

The Breach Diary: 

1. 10th Nov- USPS confirms the cyber intrusion and gave an estimation of 2.9 million affected customers.

2. 10th Nov- Sarah Hendrickson appointed as the chief of security.

 3. 11th Nov- Microsoft fixed a 19-year-old bug, which can be used by the hackers to launch drive-by attacks.

4. 12th Nov- 24,105 stories about data breach was reported by the Deloitte

According to another news report, after hacking into USPS, days after this event, hackers broke into U.S. National Weather Service computers. This attack was confirmed by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This attack took place just two days after the attack on the USPS. According to the American media reports, many of the NOAA services were put under temporary maintenance or were taken down temporarily. One of the representatives of the company told the Washington post that they know it was an attack from the hackers and it originated from China.

The agency had failed to inform appropriate authorities regarding these attacks. Although there is enough evidence pertaining to these attacks, NOAA refused to comment on the issue pertaining to the Chinese attacks on the United States Satellite network and weather conditions. They haven’t confirmed if this attack affected their notification or impacted any classified data.

HBO Go Lands on Xbox One

On Thursday, it was confirmed by Microsoft that the cable network's a la carte online streaming service, HBO Go, would now be available on the Xbox One gaming console. According to the reports, Microsoft had already announced that Xbox One users will be able to access the HBO Go by end of 2014.

HBO Go: 

HBO Go is one stop destination for all the viewers of HBO, as it gives them an access to an entire range of library starting from the "The Sopranos" to the most thrilling "Game of Thrones”. It has to be noticed that HBO go is only available to the paid channel subscribers. While on one side HBO Go was unavailable on the latest hardware from both Microsoft and Sony, it was available on their previous hardware like last-generation Xbox 360 from Microsoft to PlayStation 3 from Sony.

According to HBO's vice president of digital domestic network distribution, Jeff Dallesandro, the users of the Xbox One will be able to access to the action world with a series of films from HBO. The users will be able to Kinect with the films. This remark was considered quite witty as it was referring to the Kinect voice-controlled camera by Microsoft, which enables the users to switch off apps and even play games.

The existing library of Microsoft consists of companies like Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video and Netflix and now it is joined by HBO Go. This comes at a retail cost of $350 and that too after a price of $50 price cut announced by Microsoft until the end of 2014.

Market competition: 

There has been an increased competition in the market since many console makers are aggressively investing in their product marketing aiming to target both entertainment hub as well as video game players. Although companies like Microsoft and Sony continue to grow, they are always looking for an prospect to enter the living room area of nearly 10 million homes in United States of America. According to Gfk, market researcher, one of the best or most common device through which user can view Netflix on a TV screen will be the gaming console.

Microsoft and Sony have been facing problems in terms of time management as it takes long time to provide media apps on any of their latest devices. If the viewers do not have access to HBO Go, they are forced to use streaming devices and web browsers and it takes them away from PlayStation and Xbox. HBO Go is one of the most searched by customers who are looking for purchasing streaming devices. Fire TV stick, which was recently launched by Amazon lacks HBO Go and it clearly highlights the difficulty that is faced by big companies to acquire the rights for HBO movies and shows.

HBO has already announced that they are working on releasing a stand alone online service, which is meant for the users without subscription to the cable service, and this is completely different from HBO Go.

Reduce the Risk of Mobile Radiation- Follow These Tips

In order to carry out data transmission, Radio frequency Energy or RF is emitted by the mobile phones. Radio frequency Energy waves are said to be travelling in the form of electromagnetic fields. Other radiations like Gamma and X-Ray are known to cause interference or ionization in human body, but contrary to this RF waves do not cause any such problems.

Whom to trust: 

U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has already said that the RF radiations produced by the mobile phones are at very low level hence not capable enough to cause any serious health problems. Probably the same would have been told about Alcohol and Cigarettes. Contrary to FDA, World Health Organization (WHO) has said that the electromagnetic waves, which are produced by the mobiles phones, are considered carcinogenic to human beings and this has been very much classified by the “International Agency for Research on Cancer”.

No one can assure whether mobile phones are threatening or not. If you ask a common person, excessive use of phones have really given headache and restlessness to them. So what can we do? Following the below mentioned tips will come handy:

Always buy branded phones: 

One of the best means of prevention from the dangerous radiations emitted from phones. There are many phones, which have been approved by the authorities. Some of the example brands are Apple, Samsung, Nokia, HTC, Sony, among others.

Always check the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) value: 

Most of the time, this information can be found on the setting tab of the menu. If you are unable to locate the same then you need to dial *#07# on your mobile and the information will be relayed. If the phone does not relay the information, it means that the brand is not following with local and International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) standards.

Headsets: 

If you are a person who is not able to invest in branded phones and have rather settled down with a Chinese make phone, it is time to start using headphones. This is only way you can avoid using the phone directly close to your head. Do not think of getting a Bluetooth device as that also will emit radiations to affect your health.

Switch of the phone when not using it: 

It is not possible to switch off the phone during office hours, but is always important to switch off the phone at bedtime and not to sleep with the phone close to you.

Keep the phone away from body: 

Always try to avoid keeping phone close to you. If the phone is in pocket always, keep the screen towards your body to ensure radiations move out of the body.

Using mobile phones continuously can never be deemed correct; it is common understanding among the users. However, sometime there are situations wherein you might have situations wherein you have to carry your phone or use it most of the time. Just try to follow above steps to avoid any future damage.